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MSU's termination letter…

MSU's termination letter focuses on the "disrepute" that Tucker brought to the university, so if he can show that the university through its BoT created that "disrepute" by leaking it out into the world, he's gonna have a toehold in the coming legal battle. Curious what the employment lawyers think.

I remember him doing the…

https://youtu.be/aSHaxzO8_fE

https://youtu.be/aSHaxzO8_fE

 

I remember him doing the…

I remember him doing the exact same thing in Stanford’s 2011 Orange Bowl win - the interviewer asked him a gushing questions about the victory and he said something like “you should really talk to the guys who made this win possible” and then motioned to Luck and someone else (Fleener?) before jogging off, albeit with a giant shit-eating grin on his face. But when things are bad he’ll take the heat - there was a good interview with Buckeye lineman known for his alcohol consumption with some Vikings podcast when Harbaugh was interviewing there where he made that point, i.e. that when players screw up Harbaugh will say something weird / wild to take the heat off them. Just who Harbaugh is and how he operates.

Here's to hoping that the…

Here's to hoping that the other three finalists being QBs results in a split vote. But yeah, it's gonna be Young.

I was there in my first trip…

I was there in my first trip to Camp Randall. The Wiscy fans were not happy, understandably so. After the game ahead of me some UM fan was holding his little boy on his shoulders on the way out and the kid was chanting out “Go Blue, Go Blue”. A Wiscy fan in camo-gear turned to say “Just like the goddamn Taliban.”  2001 man. What a year.

I knew a guy who played for him at GVSU

Said that Kelly was way worse back then, and had actually toned it down considerably in the intervening years. Which, I mean, holy sh!t.

Rather disappointed...

...that this wasn't analysis of his trucking of the Iowa fan.

Seriously, though, this is a great series. The insights are much appreciated from this non-playing fan.

Haha, same here, very small town kid...

...that realized he wasn't in Kansas anymore after that session. If my presenters were members of any groups I don't recall; I just remember that one of them was a woman trying to cultivate a beard.

It was the early orientation for undergrads...

...a few weeks / months before classes even began, just an overnight where you get pulled around by your group leader and shown all the sights (and he suckered us into stepping on the Diag, the prick).  Not everyone attended. I know it sounds crazy, I have a hard time believing that it happened, too, and I sat through it.

UM used to shut down open discourse right off the bat...

...at orientation. In the mid-90s I attended a freshman orientation session during the summer, which was a pretty great experience for the most part.  Met some great folk, some of whom I've even kept in contact with over the years.  

The one bad / weird part was when they took us into East Quad, then through some basement tunnels and finally into a little classroom.  We had three presenters who then led us through a bunch of scenarios.  The first question was, "would you be uncomfortable if you found out that your assigned roommate was gay?" They told the people who were o.k. with it to stand to the left, the people who were not to stand to the right.  Then they'd spend the next 10-15 minutes haranguing the people on the right.  Same for follow-up questions regarding race relations, affirmative action, government spending, the full panoply of political / cultural hot-button issues.  By the end, everyone was wising up and standing on the left...

...except for the last question, which was "would you feel uncomfortable walking through a majority black neighborhood" or something of that nature.  One lone guy stands on the right and they start tearing into him, but he's not having it - dude starts talking, thick NY accent, he's from fuckin' Astoria, and he starts mocking them for thinking that he, a white dude, should walk through Bushwick at midnight without a care in the world.  Would not let up.  All the rest of us start laughing, the presenters start screaming, finally our tour guide / orientation leader steps in from the shadows and leads us out to the next stop.

I know I wasn't the only one who went through this - my sister had the exact same experience the prior year, and we laugh at how fucking ridiculous it is that they put a bunch of 17-18 year olds through a goddamn Maoist struggle session, but whatever. Point is, if the safe spaces go, they'll have something else to fall back on.

Detroit native Kevin Nash.

Was told he would've been Mr. Basketball for the State of Michigan his senior year but for some dude named Earvin.

There is genius in your comment...

...in that I can't quite tell if it's satire or serious. But, if you must know, my politics are as follows: [LENGTHY JEREMIAD REDACTED BECAUSE NO ONE GIVES A DAMN].

Dave

That's fair, and that's why...

...I wrote that it's a short-term answer to some problems, including the one you identify. But continuing to allow universities to prop themselves up based on "cheap" (i.e., low-interest) money is just a guarantee that tuitions will continue to increase.  I.e., if people can pay it, even if it's based on crippling loans, they will charge it.  And even though high tuition is the main problem, a low interest rate is still big money when tacked onto a high principal. 

Dave

OK, don't shoot me if I'm missing something...

...I just looked up "Business Forward Michigan" on the Michigan LARA website and I couldn't find it listed. Even a non-profit would have to register, no? I mean, I see every iteration of "United Way of X" in there. 

Dave

I upvoted you for three reasons:

1. You referred to my post.

2. We signed up for the blog on the same day in 2008.

3. You actually Googled "Business Forward Michigan." Now I'm curious about it, too.

Dave

I also want to note...

...that issue of the cost of tuition is near and dear to my heart.  I went to UM (twice) as an in-state kid and it was a great education value-wise and otherwise.  But looking at the tuition now for both undergrad and my grad program, kids who come from my circumstances -- blue collar parents, lower middle class -- are basically shut out from attending.  And that's a damn shame, given the school's (purported) emphasis on diversity. Having a school that's basically nothing but kids from well-off families isn't "diversity" just because they're not all white, it's an old Benetton ad.

Dave

Ha!

First time in a long time anyone's said that i'm well-reasoned or informed on anything, so thanks.  And I got little up/down arrows now!

WOOO

Dave

Mr. Behm sounds like a good guy.

And I'm all for transparency in how the regents operate.  But I'm a little concerned about his position on student loans.  With respect to lowering the costs of attending UM, he is saying that a main priority will be to seek to lower student loan interest rates.  With the caveat that I haven't devoted a ton of time to this, and that my morning coffee has already worn off, I wonder if that is really helpful or just ends up kicking the can down the road. I've read a number of economists argue pretty persuasively that prevalence of student loans is one of the reasons that universities have been able to gild the lily over the last couple of decades.  (I.e., if you give everyone $100 to pay towards X, the price of X will end up increasing by $100.  Tuition is no different.)  Veronique de Rugy writes about this quite a bit.

But even if the interest rates are lower, it's still a loan that needs to be repaid based upon tuition that's spiraled out of control.  That's the primary factor that needs to be addressed, IMHO.  And I'm not sure how you do that without taking a hard look at why the university's gotten so much more expensive, and also talking about where/how to make some cuts.

Reducing the tuition would also, I believe have the impact of (over time) increasing state funding.  Right now why would the state rep for, say, Escanaba, vote to have more of the public fisc go towards a flagship university that very few of his constituents can even afford? 

I know the odds of tuition ever going down are minimal to non-existent, given the various fiefdoms that arise in a university setting.  But I honestly don't see how lowering interest rates does anything but solve some short-term problems, and do see how it could in fact exacerbate the long term issue.

Anyways, my thoughts, and I'm always interested in how I might have gotten it wrong.  And I wish Mr. Behm the best.

Dave

 

 

 

Can't see his name without...

...remembering him taking out 3 guys as a FB on an Anthony Thomas TD run against Wiscy.

He's been on a couple of tv shows in the past.

The great Brisco County Jr., and the awful Saved By The Bell: The College Years.

Bingo.

It's much more likely that Hardaway gets an oReb on a Burke miss than the other way around.  That's going to skew the numbers a bit.

Hmm.

Not sure Ted Kennedy would have agreed.

Well played.

Very well played.

The David Terrell...

...B.A.D.-Ass Co-ed Activities Liaison.

One argument I'm not sure of...

... is the notion that revenue sharing make the NFL a "socialist" enterprise.  Well, no more than owning shares in a corporation is socialist.  I've always thought of the NFL as one giant corporation, with each team representing a share.  I.e., if I buy the Lions, I'm not really purchasing the Lions franchise as must as I'm purchasing a piece of the NFL, which is a giant money-making operation.  Maybe I'm wrong, though.

The other points are fair, though I'm glad the MLB hasn't implemented relegation -- given the late 90s, the Tigers would have been in the Dominican Summer League.

Time for my annual repost...

...of this great article that shows what a tool Lemming is.

http://scotteden.net/stories_somedreamers.html

Of surprise to no one, Bo loathed the man.

Watching MR for the '86 version of The Game w/o audio...

...but was that a failed 2-point conversion attempt? When the extra point would have put us up 3?  I know I'm not supposed to critique Bo, but that seems ... questionable.

Also!

Blaha: Rick Mahorn, who does radio, was in the center of press row and went up to make sure that the gals, one of our official scorekeepers, wasn't injured — and that one of our longtime statisticians, who is physically impaired a little bit, didn't get hurt. I saw Ricky taking care of business.

Mahorn: You do what you gotta do sometimes in life.

Also:

Maybe Dantonio was cheesed that he was sharing the stage with a lowly assistant coach instead of Hoke?

http://www.mlive.com/sports/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/01/brady_hoke_mark_dantonio_among.html

I imagine someone who's -really- paranoid could have seen this as "MSU head coach is only worth as much as a Michigan assistant."

Dave

It'd be nice to get further confirmation.

But it's clear from the MHSFCA site that the two (Dantonio, Hecklinski) were on the same panel this morning:

http://www.mhsfca.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/2012_clinic_schedule_rev2.pdf

Maybe some enterprising soul can reach out to a camp participant?  I'd imagine it was a pretty popular and well-attended session for HS coaches.

Regardless of whether this particularly incident is true or not, it's become pretty clear from all other actions to date (feuding with Hart, swipes at Michigan during unrelated press conferences, the incident in the Bacon book) Dantonio is one disturbed cat.

Dave

p.s. Good to see that they started out the morning with an "everyone attends" session on concussions.

I think it was in the last 5-6 years...

...that Austin Panter kid that everyone wanted desperately to work out at linebacker.  For some reason he never cracked the rotatation.

This phrase made my ears prick up:

"[T]here does appear to be sufficient information to raise significant concerns as to whether a concentration of power in a single individual or program may have threatened or eroded institutional control of intercollegiate athletics at Penn State."

That's not an accidental choice of words.  This is a necessary finding for a NCAA "death penalty."  

Am I crazy for thinking that the B10 wants the Penn State football program to die for a few years?  Do they have that power?  And if not, what if the Big 10 (as opposed to the NCAA) finds that these concerns -- i.e., a lack of institutional control -- existed?  Can the NCAA bootstrap onto the finding?  Should I stop asking questions?

 

THIS.

"[W]e’re going to take some -- I don’t know if you call them ‘chances,’ I call them ‘opportunities’ when they come. "

Oh, what a wonderful thing to read these words. 

Sorry, this popped up and I just had to post:

http://blog.pennlive.com/davidjones/2011/11/mcqueary_tells_psu_wideouts_he.html

On Friday afternoon, according to two team sources, new receivers coach Kermit Buggs gathered his players in a room at the PSU football complex and allowed them to talk with McQueary on a speaker phone.

During a brief and emotional conversation, McQueary told them, “I wanted to let you guys know I'm not your coach anymore. I'm done.”

When players asked, "Coach, where are you? Can we see you?" McQueary responded, “No, I'm actually in protective custody. I'm not in State College.”

McQueary added that he was, "Double-fisting it," meaning he was having two drinks at once.

Bieleman talking about playing between the whistles?

Wasn't he Wiscy's coach when one of his special teams guys tried to twist Stevie Breaston's leg off after the play was dead?  I don't recall any suspension / discipline meted out in that instance.

This...

...is the essential point.  This guy was never coming to UofM.  He wants to put out stuff that makes UofM look like it doesn't / didn't know what it is / was doing, that's all.  All this noise about "neck-and-neck with State" is just that: noise. 

Re: Lewan

I was sitting behind the Michigan bench, about 15 rows back, and appeared that he was not well.  It wasn't that he was favoring / protecting a limb, it just seemed like he was seriously gassed.  I wouldn't be surprised if he had the flu or something.

"No Spartan can be that stupid or ignorant."

My dear brother-fan, as someone who grew up just outside of East Lansing before attending UofM (x2), I must tell you: you're dead wrong.

Also check out some of SN's

Also check out some of SN's comments below, which seem to have disappeared from the board but not from the Internet:

I'll give you this, HailToTheVictor...

...you've got balls.  Big, fat, juicy ones.  Dantonio-esque, even.  Only you (and fifteen or so others on this thread) have the nuttage to take me on.  All the other losers on this website are laughing, thinking I'm some sort of joke. 

(Which I'm not!  I'm as serious as George Perles at the Old Country Buffett on Grand River Avenue.  As serious as Coach Dantonio's engorged man-meat pointing at the heavens towards his celestial birthplace.  As serious as Cedric Everson walking through that door with one thing on his mind.  But I digress.) 

But you know better.  You understand how important these internet posts are.  How necessary it is to get the final word in over a fan of the opposition.  That you can't let some Spartan waltz onto a Wolverine website and say things like "Caulcrick is pretty good" or "Hart should shut up" or "maize looks suspiciously like yellow."  That a war of words over the internerd matters.  Alone (with fifteen or so others) amongst these cowards, you grab a hold of your cojones and say: this will not stand.  And I applaud you for it, br...

Whoa, that was close.  True: in another life, we might have been brahs.  If I close my eyes I can see it -- it's brah-tastic.  But as brah-some as it might have been, we're doomed to be enemies forever.  Like Cena and Batista, man.  Cena and Batista...why can't they see they're on the same side? [Sob.]

Anyways, I'm out.  Stay strong, HTTV.  Stay strong.

SPARTAN NATION   

It's in regard to that 1989 agent case in Chicago.

A writeup is here.

So, the question then was "why didn't Dan Webb cross-examine Bo?"  I remember reading / hearing that in the pre-trial deposition Webb & Co. wanted to paint Bo as a wealthy guy making money off the backs of the poor players.  But when they asked about his salary, they discovered it was -way- less than other top tier coaches.  When they followed up with questions about the Nike / merchandising money, Bo explained that it was pooled and divided up among all the assistant coaches.  And Bo's pure anger / righteousness just played too well to the jury.

I seem to recall that one of the AUSAs wrote up a recounting of the whole thing somewhere, but I can't find it.  Points to anyone that can. 

 

He had one of the best blocking plays I've ever seen.

On an A-Train sweep Shea pulled ahead, crushed Wiscy defender #1, then charged further downfield and wiped out Wiscy defenders ##2-3.  And the camera and announcers were only paying attention to A-Train trotting into the endzone.  If that is MANBALL, I'm all for it.

The only evidence in that article...

...is that Narduzzi is a horse's ass.  I just love the pass-agg in his comment:

"Whether they're stealing our signals, I don't know. But we've got something (changed this year) on the signals too. You never know. Guys are thieves, you know."

If you don't have evidence, don't shoot off your mouth.  But that's par for the course with that meathead.  As I recall, he was the one who cursed out the MMB (trombone section) after our last win against them.  Pure class, him.

This marks a turning point in Michigan bball recruiting...

... if we're activitely hoping that an AAU coach can out-influence a kid's parents. 

[NOTE: I realize that this coach isn't one of the shady ones.  Still.]

Not entirely fair.

As I recall, he was pretty good at having a hot wife.

In a nod to your handle, how about:

The Apostate Berates, Three Days Late.

C'mon, man...

...don't allow yourself to be reasonable.  Get swept up in ANGAR. 

Dave

Apparently Comley chose to go down swinging.

Hollis & Co. can take pride in their better, classier program:

Michigan State hockey head coach Rick Comley reportedly was involved in a physical confrontation Friday night in the Carlson Center with Alaska Nanooks fans Robert Downes, a Fairbanks Superior Court judge, and his daughter, attorney Amy Tallerico.



So, to recap the MSU fan's fevered mindset: beating on judges and smacking around chicks is fine if you're a true Spartan warrior.  Darius Morris trash-talking back at one of the biggest sh!t-talkers in the B10 -- that's just not classy.

Dave

Dear Coach Rodriguez,

Thank

Dear Coach Rodriguez,

Thank you for your kind offer of auto-asphyxiation (non-erotic) after this most recent loss to our friends in the North.  It should be noted, however, that Michigan-style atonement requires a full display of traditional seppuku or hara-kiri.  Dressed in ceremonial all-white funeral robes you will kneel atop a snow-white tatami mat, itself covered with crushed red velvet.  After you profess your shame – which will haunt your descendants unto eternity – David Brandon will offer you a nod, which you should take as a “go-ahead” signal.  Kindly unsheathe your short sword and plunge it into your lower abdomen.  Please cut across and then upwards before major shock sets in.  Once you have completed this exercise, the officially-appointed kaishaku (most likely Lloyd Carr, though we’ve been hearing good things about Gary Moeller) will provide you with the supreme honor of decapitation. 

In the alternative, please start winning some of these games.

Very truly yours, etc.

My prayer:

"Dear Lord, please grant Taylor Lewan the murderous hands of Jake Long.  Amen."

The best news...

...is that Pop Forcier is on board.  Having a parent in agreement with the coaching staff is more than half the battle, if past experience holds.  See, e.g., Perry, Chris.